


Trinitarian Formula

by AssistedRealityInterface



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Drug Abuse, F/M, Gen, Gunplay, Heroin addiction, i'm a mess, mexican honeymoon, sinful writing from a former catholic schoolgirl, weird sexual symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6053302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssistedRealityInterface/pseuds/AssistedRealityInterface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seth blesses Kate. Kate gets a gun. What’s left of the Gecko family plays the long con.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trinitarian Formula

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I mostly write Richie/Kate or OT3, but this is for a friend, and the idea was just too good to pass up! So, enjoy my sinning filth. God knows I did.

Kate’s entire body vibrates with stress, her bones practically rattling her teeth right out of her skull as she unlocks the hotel room and prays Seth hasn’t taken a hit yet.

The door creaks. The bedsprings shift. She can smell the lemon juice she dumped over the carpets in a vain attempt to clean them, but no burning metal, cracked spoons heating new doses. Kate pokes her head in, the plastic grocery bag swinging under her arm. “Seth?”

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at his hands. There’s a gun in one of them, shiny, smooth and black, so sleek it doesn’t look real. Kate takes a step into the room.

“You’re nervous.”

Kate flinches. Seth looks up, head cocked. “Something bothering you, Kate? You look scared of me.”

“Not you!” Kate promises. “No, it’s just—the guy downstairs was giving me the eye again, and he got off work the same time I was coming up. I thought he was gonna follow me and I freaked.”

He’d just gone to his car, and actually, he didn’t faze Kate that much, she could deal with creeps, but Seth perked up at the reassurance. He lifted the gun and grinned. “Next time, make sure he does follow you, princess. I’ll talk to him.”

“Thanks, macho man,” she said, and he laughed. For a second, the night was gonna be okay.

“This is Richie’s gun,” Seth said, and Kate’s stomach plummeted. So much for that. “I didn’t—I didn’t realize. We must’ve swapped guns at some point before, uh—you know—“

“Then he’s got yours,” Kate said. “Some little piece of you that can stay with him.”

Seth was silent for so long, picking at the circle-shaped scabs on his arms that Kate started to panic again. He finally sighed. “You’re such a weird kid sometimes. Always thinking of good stuff.”

“Not good ideas for a heist,” Kate joked. Seth snorted.

“No. But that’s all right. You got me for that.”

Kate nodded, crossing the room and sitting on the bed next to him. “Yeah. I do, Seth. You know that, right?”

“I do,” Seth yawned. “Did you get dinner?”

“I did,” Kate said, “and, check this—I stole a candy bar.”

Seth flopped back on the bed and spread his arms out. The track marks glistened with new blood in the dirty hotel lights. Kate stroked her fingers up his tattoo and pretended not to notice.

“I’m such a bad influence,” he said as she unwrapped the candy bar and cracked it in two. “Dessert first, shoplifting candy bars from the local bodega, sharing beds with strange men—“

“You’re not that strange, Seth,” Kate said, rolling her eyes and proffering him the candy bar. “And besides, we’re hardened criminals now, so we can have dessert whenever we want.”

Seth started to laugh, a full bodied, chest-rippling howling laugh. He reached up and rubbed at his eyes. “Jesus Christ. Katie-cakes, the hardened criminal.”

She pressed his half of the candy bar to his lips. “Sure am. Eat up, I’m gonna heat up the real food.”

She was better than he knew, Kate thought as she got off the bed and started up the beat-up electric stove in the corner. She’d stolen the candy bar, sure, but she’d stolen everything else too.

“Couldn’t be helped,” she told herself, a quiet mutter. “We’re almost out of money.”

_And when Seth isn’t hungry, he doesn’t shoot up._

She put the water on to boil, and for a few minutes, there was silence.

“You know,” Seth said, “Richie was always a better shot’n me. I never admitted it to him before, but it’s true, I guess.”

“You’re plenty good,” Kate promised. “Seth, are you…okay?”

The question hangs in the air. Seth raises his eyebrows. “You’ve never asked me that.”

“Well, I figured before it was obvious, given where we are,” Kate said, and his lips quirked in a smile. “But…I’m worried about you. Is that okay?”

“That’s okay,” Seth said. “Besides, I could say the same about you.”

Kate doesn’t think of her brother, because she doesn’t have to. Her concern for him is under the skin, in her bones, permeating every part of herself, because, well, that’s family for you.

“I’ll be all right,” she promised. “Hey. We got each other, right?”

“Right,” Seth said.

“And nothing’s gonna fuck with a Gecko brother, right?”

“Right,” Seth said. “Quarter in the swear jar.”

“Shut up,” Kate said, smiling.

She was almost done making dinner when Seth sat up and said, “Money’s out. We gotta move.”

“Where to?” she asked, getting cracked plastic bowls from under the bed. Seth shrugged.

‘Well…Don’t know, exactly. Not yet. We’re just—biding time.”

“Until?” Kate asked.

“Until we can take back all our money from those fucking snakes,” Seth said. “We’re playing the long con, Katie-cakes. You ready?”

“Yes.”

_No._

Seth watched her, cocking his head, and stood up. “Wait. Before you’re well and truly fuckin’ ready, there’s something we gotta do.”

Kate stood up without thinking, watching him reach for his gun. Her skin shivered. Seth cocked his head.

“How’s it go again?” he asked.

“How’s what?” Kate asked. Seth made a face.

“Sign of the cross,” he said. “Up, left, right, down?”

“I—I don’t think it matters much,” Kate said. “To God, I mean.”

“Ah, jeez, whatever. Not like I’m getting into heaven anyways,” Seth said, removing the magazine on the gun. Kate blinked.

“All right, all right, hold on, how’s this go?” Seth said. “Name of the father…”

He pressed the gun to her temple and dragged it down her face; slow, gentle, until the cold steel hitched at her lip, pressing in. She could feel the warmth in her mouth leeching out into the gun.

“Name of the son…”

Seth moved the gun to her chest, stroking it in one slow, single movement along the top of her bra. He stopped when the gun caught on her bra strap.

“Name of the holy spirit…”

Seth slid it to her other shoulder in the same way, then brought it down, so low she could feel the gun pressed against her stomach, the muzzle practically nestled inside her skin.

“Amen,” Seth said, bringing it up, up, up, between her breasts and under her chin. Kate’s pulse pounded against the gun, hot and light. “Did I do it right?”

“We say it in Latin sometimes, but that was okay,” Kate said, her voice firm and unshaken. Her body was another story. “What was that for?”

“Wanted to do something nice for you,” Seth mumbled. “Just—thought it might make you feel better. Sign of the cross n’all that.”

“God,” Kate laughed, a big, warm exhale. “Okay. Thank you. I think—I think it did.”

He nodded, reloaded the magazine, and handed her the gun. “Good. Tonight you’ve got this, okay? Don’t use it unless you have to. We’re just gonna do something simple n’sweet tonight. Just to eat, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, hoping he meant it this time, that food money didn’t become drug money faster than she could keep an eye on him. She didn’t say it, but Seth looked away and down at his arms anyway.

“Not for much longer, Katie-cakes,” he said. “We’re just playing the long con, that’s all.”

“Right,” she said, grabbing him by the wrist, gun slid down her pants and pressed, cold and hard, against her thigh. She dug her fingers in, just a little, and felt the blood in his track marks under her nails. “The long con.”

Seth looked her up, looked her down, opened his mouth and leaned in, just a little, thought better of it, and pulled away to get their duffel bag.

“Still haven’t decided where we wanna go?” Seth said, going out to the car, Kate trailing behind. She opened the door and slid in next to him with a shrug.

“Someplace with a pool, I think,” she said, “And a rat’s-nest of _culebras_.”

Seth clapped the dashboard, starting the car. “Sounds good to me. Let’s jet, Katie-cakes.”

For a little while, she could lean back in the car beside him as he sped through the street, and not think of hotels and heroin and heists and long cons and little brothers. The only thing on her mind was the cold, bitter steel that still simmered over her heated skin, a memory of the flesh.


End file.
